


Stories Don’t End Just Because We Break

by noisystar



Category: Toy Story (Movies)
Genre: Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt, Existential Crisis, Fluff and Angst, Hiding Feelings, Love, M/M, Pining, Spoilers, Trauma, physical and mental trauma, post Toy Story 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-09 19:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19482532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noisystar/pseuds/noisystar
Summary: Woody and Buzz write letters to each other. One day, Buzz’s letters stop coming.





	1. Lipstick and Perfume

**Author's Note:**

> This is my response to Toy Story 4’s ending, what I want to happen next. C’mon Toy Story 5!

The first time Woody opened up a letter to see a bright red kiss-mark smeared on the paper he chuckled, but in a way that started out with humor and trickled quickly into something pained, something devastated. He cleared his throat, smiled, and read the letter from Buzz.

Bonnie and the toys were doing wonderful. Bonnie was halfway through first grade and halfway through a box of googly eyes to maintain Forky’s face. She never seemed bothered by it, though, and Jessie said she wouldn’t be surprised if, one day, Bonnie batted away her parents, insisting Forky was perfect with or without both eyes.

Woody laughed fondly as he read that, then slowly reached around to his back, between his shoulder blades, where it was bare and absent a pull string.

Buzz always finished his letters the same way; _To infinity. Buzz._

This letter, however, had a P.S. underneath.

_Bonnie has become fascinated with adding art to us toys. Stickers, markers! This one time she got her hands on some lipstick, and… well, it’s not just toys that get lost, winking text emoticon. What do you think of this color?_

At first, Woody wondered how Buzz had learned to use postscript so accurately, and then his attention snapped to the shape of lips printed in red at the top of the letter. It was bright, obviously had been heavily layered, and it was a little wobbly in shape—Woody imagined Buzz in front of a Barbie mirror (from Ken’s compact), Rex holding it up, and hunching over a lipstick half his size. He laughed, ignoring the ache.

Woody took a day to write his response, leaving many words unwritten, and adding in the postscript; _I can only imagine the color suits you, Buzz._

“All ready?” Woody moseyed up to Bo at the top of the merry-go-round, wielding the rolled-up letter.

“Just waiting on a Lone Ranger,” Bo said, patting the side of the buzzing drone pterodactyl.

“Let’s move, sir! We’ve got a schedule!” The toy soldier sergeant barked, strapped on top of the drone with the controller.

“C’mon c’mon!” The drone whirred, trembling, anxious, a grin stretched up its beak.

Woody offered the letter to the drone’s hatch, then Bo grabbed his wrist. She pulled a long breath in through her nose over the letter.

“Woody, is that… perfume?”

Woody made an indiscernible noise out of his gaping mouth.

Bo squinted at him.

“I, uh, well… yes.”

Before Woody had tied up the letter, he had dragged up a bottle of old cologne from the Antique Store; it had Stenson stenciled in intricate cursive on the front, and the kind of nozzle that didn’t spray but was meant to shake out a drop onto one’s wrist. However, the cap was stuck, and suffice to say Woody managed to get it off but not without drenching himself in the cologne.

It worked out in the end, perhaps even better than Woody had planned; now the letter had cologne _and_ his smell on it, presumably, since he had rolled over it like Hamm in a pile of coins.

Bo smiled at Woody as she helped him put the musty letter into the drone. She patted his back as they watched their postal team lift off, her hand lingering, as if she wished she could do more. Woody was grateful she didn’t say anything aloud.

  
He and Buzz had been writing each other letters for just a few months. There was always a couple weeks or so between them, because of the distance. When Bo and Woody had found the energetic drone, the idea had come as though it had been waiting for the right opportunity. The first letter Woody sent to Buzz brought twenty-seven of the longest days after it, until Woody had the scrap of purple construction paper in his hands, signed with the first _To infinity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoping to have this whole thing done pretty quick :) Here’s the beginning!


	2. Green Tea

“Bo? Do you see anything?” Woody floundered up the dewy ledge to meet Bo on his floppy stuffing legs, clapping his hat back onto his head as it tried to bounce off.

Bo turned to him, her mouth making a frown that seemed impossible with her soft features. “No.”

Woody looked out across the trees that surrounded the playground. They stood at the top of a wooden tower, a plastic slide rolling out of it like a long tongue. It was the last place they had sent off Terro the drone, and where they would wait for her and the letter she would bring before setting off to the next world of kids.

Bo sighed after a long silence, grimacing into her hand. “Terro was a good partner. Come on, Woody.”

“Whoa, hey now, what do you mean?” Woody said as Bo gently took his arm, stiffening.

Bo met his gaze. “I mean it’s time to move on. We’ve been here for nearly two months.”

“Move o- we can’t just move on, Bo! What if they come tomorrow? What if they come and think we’ve abandoned them?”

Bo turned fully to him and said, patiently, “How long would you like to wait?”

“As long as it takes.”

Bo stepped closer to him. “You’ll wait a month, a year?”

“Well if we move they won’t know—“

“A decade? Fifty years, after this playground is old and forgotten as new playgrounds are built, waiting every moment of every day thinking of nothing but what grows the pain in your chest?”

Her eyes were filling up Woody’s vision, looming over him, sparking and challenging and with rivers churning behind them.

Woody’s heart throbbed, muffled every attempt he made to speak.

“What am I saying,” Bo sighed, thunder softening to emptied clouds. “Of course you would. You already have.”

Marbles were puttering around Woody’s head. “What?” He questioned, hollow.

Bo smiled the same smile she gave him when he had begun sending letters wreathed in perfume. “For Andy. You’ve never stopped waiting for him.”

It was a kick in the gut, from a boot that had been raised for a long time. Words Bo had wanted to say, words Woody pretended didn’t exist.

Bo bit her lip as she saw the sadness fading into Woody’s eyes, as he began putting his ear to locked doors holding behind them old memories. She put a hand to his cheek.

“I know it’s hard. You’ve never been one to move on. You couldn’t let go of me, you can’t let go of Andy, and now you can’t let go of Buzz. But if you keep chasing the past like this, you’ll never be able to be happy with who you are right now. You’ll always be wishing for what’s gone. Maybe this is a good thing for you. Let Buzz go — the more letters you send, the more you’re keeping him from moving on, too. You’ve chosen different paths. Buzz and Andy will always be a part of you, and that should make you happy. But instead you’re turning them into sadness - you can’t keep wishing they were back in your life now. You’ve got to move on.”

It was what made Woody and Bo so different, what caused their arguments, but Bo had never made it so personal, had never pulled Andy and Buzz into it. She had watched Woody send letters to Buzz for months, patient that Woody would come to the realization on his own. Would it have hurt any less that way? “I’m… making Buzz feel like... _this_?” Woody curled his fingers into the fabric of his chest, stared at the ground as he pictured Buzz, spending nights waiting for his letter, when he was surrounded by Bonnie, Jessie, the toys. Everyone he needed.

Woody swallowed, then, stiffly, nodded.

He kept all of Buzz’s letters in a bright pink, plastic Easter egg, and always kept his favorite piece of the most recent one tucked in his hat. Woody sat outside of the skunk car with the egg popped open between his legs. He took off his hat, and from it pulled out a torn piece of a magazine. Buzz had sent him a paper sample of Elizabeth Arden Green Tea Parfum with his last letter, writing that it reminded him of when Woody had helped him get through his identity crisis of being a toy. It had taken Woody a minute to connect that memory to Sid’s house, and then to the doll table he had found Buzz at, having tea as Mrs. Nesbit. Strange association, but somehow Woody loved it, and loved that Buzz was reminded of Woody instead of loopy tea parties and near-death encounters. It was so ridiculous it was almost romantic.

Woody rifled to the letter that had come with the perfume sample. This one had a creamy green kiss applied at the bottom, next to _To infinity_. Buzz had been getting better at applying lipstick, he could tell. This shade, Buzz had informed him in the postscript, was Wasabi by Rihanna. Buzz was becoming a connoisseur.

Woody sighed, carefully tracing the kiss. “Bo’s right,” He said to the geometrically-drawn words. “I can’t stay like this, and I can’t drag you down with me.” But it hurt far more than he could have known, and his tears wouldn’t tell him that this was the right thing to do. They stayed hot and desperate. “I wish I could say goodbye.”

“You already did,” Bo said, and crouched down next to Woody as he scrubbed the tears from his face. “I remember that hug. I know Buzz does, too.”

A distant caw faded in and out of earshot. Woody’s eyes snapped up.

The caw came again, and then a buzzing of mini helicopter blades came with it.

“Terro!”

Bo and Woody began clambering to the top of the tower, but Terro swooped down to them before they made it, catching the both of them in her plastic claws and spinning to the grass.

“Whew! That was a trip!” Terro hooted, rolling over onto her back and sending the toy soldier tumbling.

“You’re here!” Woody slung an arm around Bo and squeezed, triumphant. “Good thing we didn’t leave, huh?” He scrambled over to Terro, leaving Bo to her strained smile.

“Where have you been?” Woody couldn’t stop laughing. “Where’s Buzz’s letter?”

“Ah - oh, uh, that,” Terro said, yelping when Woody popped open her hatch. “Actually…”

“What? Where’s the letter?”

The toy soldier marched over, shoving along the controller. “Didn’t get one, Sir.”

“What do you mean didn’t get one? Buzz didn’t have a letter for me?” Woody pried.

“No, they said he didn’t have one for you. We went around for other tasks to see if he’d have one later, but still nada,” said Terro.

“He… wait, who said? Who’s they?”

“The other toys. The unicorn, the potato mom…”

“What about Buzz?”

Terro exchanged glances with the toy soldier. “I dunno. Didn’t see him at all. Maybe he was busy?”

Woody stepped back from the drone, searching for an explanation, withdrawing into thought. Bo came to his side and placed a hand on his arm.

“Woody, it’s okay. This is good for you, remember? You both need to move on.”

Woody looked at her with dread. “No. No, Bo. This isn’t right. Buzz just _wasn’t there_?”

“It couldn’t have been easy for him. He must have needed time to himself.”

“Why didn’t the toys just tell Terro that he didn’t want to send a letter, then? Why didn’t he just write that he didn’t want to talk anymore?”

“They did just say he didn’t have a letter right now,” Terro said helpfully.

Woody locked eyes with Bo, closing a hand around her arm. “Something’s not right.”

Bo returned his gaze with sympathy. “You’re making up excuses to hang onto him, Woody.”

Woody’s teeth came together, gritting, and his nose began to crinkle. His narrowing gaze suddenly strayed to the egg of letters. He snatched up one of the shreds of construction paper, holding it like a banner in Bo’s face and jabbing his finger at it.

“ _To infinity._ Buzz wrote _to infinity_ ! What if he’s in trouble, and that’s why he hasn’t written back? I _have_ to go see if he’s okay! You don’t understand, Bo, because all you care about is your little journey around the world. You don’t care about friends, you don’t care about kids, you only care about toys that are useful to you.”

Gently, Bo removed her hand from Woody. “Do you really believe that?”

Woody’s mouth closed on empty air, tears burning in his eyes again. Eventually, he said, “I can’t believe I had to choose between you and him. We left him there, knowing Bonnie is going to outgrow him and leave him, just like Andy.”

Bo took a deep breath, then turned away. “Figure things out for yourself, Woody. I moved on from this a long time ago. I thought you could, too.”

Quaking, Woody swung to the egg, scooped the letters into it and snapped it shut. He clutched it to his chest, glared at Bo, then marched around Terro, whose beak was hanging open, and toward the bushy foliage that circled the park.

Woody paused before the web of branches, then said over his shoulder; “Buzz cares about me, and he always will. He’d never abandon me, and now I realize I never wanted to leave him. That’s something you don’t get.”

Then he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will prob come back and edit this but wanted to post it before i went to sleep :’) because I’m impatient :’)


	3. Rocket Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does a toy find his way back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m updating the tags - this story is going to get a bit darker, much in the way of the movies themselves as they handle heavy themes. There will definitely be lots of sweetness and cute as well! I hope you enjoy!

Now that the sun floated toward noon, the candescent light of the morning was faded and gentle, and so was Woody’s anger.

He wasn’t shoving his egg through snapping twigs and rustling leaves anymore, instead crawling between and under and over, his limbs snagging, his head stuck back at the playground where he left Bo.

Eventually, he stopped, where the dirt road along the bushes opened up to asphalt.

“Dungeons and Dragons,” Woody cursed. He spun around and reeled back through the path he had made. “Bo!” He cried, a mile away. “Bo!”

He saw the wooden tower through the brambles after an hour of running. “Bo! I- I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have left you, it- it was dumb of me, I’m doing to you what I did to Buzz, I was just…” Woody staggered out of the bushes, where Bo’s skunk car had been. Where it wasn’t anymore.

She wasn’t on the tower, or waiting in the wood chips for the SUV of kids that pulled into the parking lot.

Bo wasn’t left behind. She had moved on, and Woody was too late.

As the kids’ delighted screams shuttled all over the playground, Woody lodged himself and his egg into the SUV, and watched the sunlight fade.

—-

Woody had become resourceful over the years, and, once the lights were out and the house was no longer creaking underfoot, he tip-toed out from behind the umbrella bin and found a laptop on the living room table. It didn’t take long for him to print directions to Bonnie’s house, all the while watching the stairs as the printer chirped and hummed.

There came the matter of transportation, though, because five hundred miles was not something he could do on foot, not when his stomach was turning slowly to mush with every thought of Buzz.

At first he hopped onto the backs of cars, following street names and then launching off into the gutter once the cars made an inconvenient turn off route. His face was going to be roadkill stuffed with a garnish of oil-sodden leaves if he kept that up.

Then he found Scavenger the Vulture perched in the window of a bookshop, when the streets were quiet under buzzing old lamps.

“Oh, you poor baby,” She said in a voice that oozed under Woody’s skin, even through the muffling of the glass pane between them. “You look like a toy that’s been dragged through the gutter.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” Woody rolled his eyes, reconsidering his decision to consult his map under this particular store window.

“I see, that’s a long way to go for a toy,” Scavenger said, inviting herself to Woody’s map, pressing her head flat against the window glass. “You could use a set of wings, couldn’t you?”

Woody looked over his shoulder as Scavenger spread hers. He was unimpressed, until he found himself involuntarily recalling Buzz and his wingspan, springing up proudly upon command. Buzz’s face of smoky blue eyes and crooked grins, and the corner of his lip that crawled high into the stars of arrogance that only Woody got to glimpse every now and then. It always infuriated him as much as it endeared him.

Scavenger mistook whatever look was on Woody’s face as awe, and soon she was unlocking the store and waddling Woody into an alley, explaining that she could talk to her real bird friends to give him a ride.

It didn’t work out quite the way he was led to believe. Not at all, actually. After a minute of Scavenger making unconvincing squawks at a vulture atop a telephone pole, the vulture swooped down and snatched Woody up in its claws, carrying him straight to a nest and proceeding to claw and scratch at him in persistence that he conform to furnishing.

Woody made it panting and gasping to the brush below, with a fraction less stuffing and stitches and swearing he’d never trust another toy that sounded like Peter Lorre again.

He limped through the long grass, clutching his egg and his map, until the cricket chirps drowned out all his thoughts and drove him mad. He groaned as his frustration burst, dropping the egg to claw his hat around his ears. The egg cracked open, and Woody saw the edge of a letter.

It was a letter Buzz had written on the back of one of Bonnie’s old doodles.

It was of him and Buzz, riding on a spaceship like it was a horse, surrounded by big, pointy stars.

In the letter, Buzz had said something curious, but it was so stuck between his usual prattle that Woody found it easy not to think too much about it.

_Bonnie’s been playing on the games pad a lot these days, bringing us around to watch. She keeps us in top shape! Gives me a lot of time to think, watching her lying on her bed, her eyes lit up with all the moving colors in the games pad. What’s next for us? And after that? Whatever it is, we’re gonna be here longer than any of them. To infinity. Do you get tee vee out there? I keep watching Buzz Lightyear of Star Command! Imagine a space sheriff as my second-in-command!_

Woody couldn’t let the _second-in-command_ remark go un-rebuffed, and had been thankful for the distraction. Had Buzz meant to write something so heavy? By _we_ , did he mean the toys, or…?

A papery flutter at his ear toppled Woody over screaming.

A grasshopper as long as him edged closer, tilting its crown of enormous black eyes.

Woody seized up his letters and scampered away, stumbling over torn legs as fast as he could. He’d had enough of wildlife.

Wildlife, it turned out, had not had enough of him.

Morning came and he still hadn’t found the road, and he was covered in stickers and dirt and tiny ladybugs that kept trying to cuddle against his eyeballs. Long after he had given up on ripping off all the shrubbery and seeds and puffs of wheat, a grasshopper bounded next to him and began slurping it all off. Woody screamed and fell over himself to get away; was it just him or was the same grasshopper following him?

After a while of walking in silence, bugs crawling unchecked into his torn seams, Buzz’s words started echoing in his head. _Bonnie’s been playing on the games pad a lot these days._ It made his stomach churn, remembering his own, angry rant; _Bonnie’s going to outgrow him and leave him. Just like Andy._

Would Buzz be happy for it, the way Woody never could? As much as he thought he had let Andy go, Bo was right. Andy was his kid, the one Woody would always be waiting for.

Woody suddenly dropped to his knees, letting his broken legs fold.

Tears rolled down his cheeks, drawing questions in their trails; why did he let Andy go? Why did he let Buzz go? And why had he pretended he was okay?

A soft clicking vibrated behind Woody’s head, and Woody looked around with a start. It was the grasshopper, its legs making a purring noise against its folded wings.

Woody scoffed. “Okay, you win. Go ahead, eat me. I’ve given up everything else to make them happy, why not give my life to a bug’s empty stomach.” He slumped onto his back and closed his eyes.

Something fuzzy poked incessantly at his face. “H-hey!” Woody shook his head, knocking away two antennae and peering up into those big black golf balls. The grasshopper purred. Woody squealed in surprise as the grasshopper nuzzled its way over his body—being eaten sure felt a lot like getting tickled. When the grasshopper made it to Woody’s plastic boots, it sat across from him, crouched like a puppy, and Woody’s plush body was no longer so filled with brambles and bugs.

“Well I’ll be…” Woody grinned, admiring the grasshopper’s work. “Thanks, buddy,” He said, leaning forward to pat the bug between its twitching antennae. “You’re pretty big for a grasshopper, huh?” Woody had only seen the ones in the front yard, but he remembered them being much smaller than this one. This one was even bigger than… Bullseye.

The realization dawned on him. Woody clambered to his feet, snatching the map out of the dirt. The grasshopper leaned its face against Woody’s side, and Woody looked from it to the sprawling sky above.

“Ride like the wind.”

The concept was much simpler in theory than in practice, but the two of them were hopping along and Woody felt like he was strapped to a rocket ship with Buzz again. He could almost taste Wasabi by Rihanna.

“I gotta give you a name,” Woody said between hops, one arm slung around the grasshopper’s neck and the other clamped over his hat, while his legs were knotted around the plastic egg. The grasshopper’s wings sprung out with every jump, but Woody was too big for him to fly without getting in the way. “How ‘bout,” Woody groaned as he was jostled by another jump. “Uh… Hopper?”

The grasshopper voiced no concerns as they bounded toward the road.

“That doesn’t sound too evil, does it?” Woody said, sheepish.

The name stuck, and the two of them hopped for five hundred miles.


	4. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woody finally arrives.
> 
> Please go to notes at the end of the chapter for a content warning.

It was all Woody could do to wait until Bonnie left the house with her parents in the morning.

“Okay, go!” At the command, Hopper arched down and leapt, teetering wildly until he crashed against Bonnie’s bedroom window.

Woody flailed for a catch as Hopper’s legs slipped all over the place, the insect too big to fit on the ledge. Suddenly, the window rushed open and Woody and Hopper were yanked inside.

They fell into a cushy blanket and a net of arms, Woody’s legs untangling and his egg bouncing off. “ _Woody!_ It’s _you!_ ”

Woody knew that voice, and the grizzle of red yarn against his cheek that followed. Jessie squeezed the breath out of him, refusing to let go.

“Uhh, that’s not a toy, is it,” Woody heard Buttercup point out.

“Nope. That’s definitely a flesh-eating monster bug, straight out of a nightmare,” Hamm said.

“You’re going down, nightmare bug!” Trixie wailed.

“No, wait!” Woody struggled out of Jessie’s arms and flung himself over Hopper. “He’s a friend, a friend!”

That’s when he noticed Bo Peep, standing among the toys. “Woody, you made it.”

Woody blinked, had to remember how to move his jaw. “Bo, you’re here.”

“Of course I am. Could you have kept me waiting any longer?” But there was a quiver in her smile, as if it didn’t want to be there at all.

Woody looked around his friends. An uncomfortable quiet had settled among them.

The question brought with it the worst clenching in his chest, and he wished he could have not asked at all; “Where’s Buzz?”

Jessie looked at Bo, her arms wrapped around herself, a frown quivering under wide, imploring eyes. Bo sighed.

“Buzz is gone, Woody. You were right,” Bo said. “I’m sorry.”

Woody would have done anything to tear out the feeling that shattered through him upon hearing those words. “What do you mean, gone?” Woody’s tongue fumbled as he tried to speak. It couldn’t be as simple as _gone._

Jessie opened her wrung mouth, but Bo put an arm around her and answered instead. “He was in an accident. It broke him, and Bonnie’s parents threw him away.”

Woody flubbered over noises, beginnings of sentences, blinked rapidly. _Threw him away_ immediately sent him spiraling into the memory of the incinerator, his hand clutching Buzz’s, death a burning maw just ahead of them. “Then we- we get him back! We go after him, and we fix him! That’s what we’ve always done!”

Jessie sobbed and flung herself into Bo’s arms. Woody was glaring at them; glared at Potato Head, who stared right back with a somberness under his angry eyebrows; glared at Hamm and Slinky, who didn’t meet his gaze.

“No, Woody,” Bo said, a little rougher. “You don’t think your friends wanted to? You don’t think they tried?” She rubbed Jessie’s back, and Woody recoiled, realizing his anger was only hurting them. “He wasn't just broken, not like you, just missing your voicebox, or a broken arm. What they've told me... it was awful. Irreparable, Woody. Gone. We’ve all had to move on.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Woody growled, looking at each of them, looking at Terro, who cowered inside the bedside table. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened? I could have come and done something! Why did you lie to me!”

“Don’t take it out on Terro, she didn’t know any of this. We were trying to save him, that’s why!” Potato Head growled back. “You really think you could have made it back on time, when it takes days just to send letters? Really, Mr. Hero? Mr. More-Important-Than-Everyone-Else?”

Woody trembled, fists shaking, then roared and crumpled, his hat falling off as he buried his head in his arms and clawed his hair.

“You think you’re the only one who cared about him, who is devastated?” Potato Head jeered, wobbling toward Woody, before Hamm reached out a hoof and shook his head. But Potato Head persisted. “He’s always gotta be the favorite, always gotta be the star. Been that way since Andy, he’s never gonna change.”

Woody wanted to snap. He had saved Wheezy, saved Jessie and Bullseye, saved countless other toys -- and they were telling him he couldn't save Buzz? _Buzz,_ of all toys?He wanted to grab the nearest thing and chuck it out the window. He wanted to scream and kick and snarl.

At least, he thought he did. But he wasn’t like that anymore.

He peered over his fingers, his eyes burning, cheeks damp. He looked at the toys. His friends. He saw the perfume sample, fallen out of his hat.

Woody murmured, “I’m sorry.”

Eventually, the toys huddled around him on the bed, and they sat together in the wispy daylight. Even Rex came out, who had been locked up with his Buzz memorabilia for days, and put his head in Woody’s lap until Bonnie came home.

It was then Woody realized another friend was missing. Forky.

* * *

Forky was a toy Bonnie quickly replaced. Kids grow a lot between kindergarten and first grade, and she created new art projects that she fell in love with.

Forky disappeared the same time as Buzz, and Woody couldn’t stop thinking about that.

“Yea, Forky always went back to the trash, his first home,” Knifey told Woody as Bonnie slept. “I don’t know what his deal is. Why can’t he be normal and enjoy Tupperware?” She said, as she belly-flopped into Bonnie’s lunch box and inhaled. “Ahh, still has that same aroma from when she left an apple core and potato salad in here over winter break.”

Woody immediately had to think they were together, that they were okay.

But his heart was terrified. ‘ _Broken.'_ What did that mean? And why did he want to know?

“Hey… Bo?” Woody found her on the roof, where she stayed when Bonnie was home. She didn’t belong to Bonnie, would never belong to another kid again.

Bo was sitting with Hopper and her sheep. “How you doing, partner?”

Half-heartedly, Woody padded toward her, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m… going to go look for Buzz.”

Bo stared at him quietly. Then, she nodded.

Woody stepped along the siding to Hopper, who purred louder as he approached. “Could you tell everyone I’ll be back? Don’t tell them I’m going after him. I… I don’t want to hold them back from moving on.”

“They’ll miss you,” Bo said, almost robotic. Woody felt his ears going hot as she watched him rouse Hopper up with an alfalfa sprout. Eventually, she said, “I think you’re doing the wrong thing.”

Woody couldn’t look at her. “What’s wrong about going after someone I care for?”

“What about your friends here, who need you? Why do you think I haven’t left yet? And what do you expect to find, if you find anything?"

There was a pause. Bo said, "Should they be worried you won't come back?”

Woody pulled at a neon green thread in his leg, sticking out from where Dolly and Mr. Pricklepants had played Doctor on him. He was still limping, despite the help. “Yes, I’ll come back,” Woody gritted. “Look at them, they need him.”

“ _You_ look at them, Woody.” Bo took his arm and dragged him to the window, where, in the dark, the toys were sleeping soundly. Buttercup and Jessie were in Bonnie’s bed, and Rex was leaning like a brick against Hamm in the corner. Slinky was curled around them, and the Potato Heads were nowhere to be seen, probably cuddling in the closet.

Woody watched them for a long moment. Maybe they were moving on.

“You’re making excuses again,” Bo said softly.

Then Woody looked at her, and tipped his hat so it hung half-way over his eyes. “You’re right. Maybe it’s time, then, that I do something for me. I’m going after Buzz. I have to.” He climbed back up to Hopper. “I left his letters under the dresser. Make sure they’re kept safe, please.”

“Woody, what are you doing?” Bo protested.

Woody wound his arms around Hopper’s head, and the grasshopper’s wings revved. “I’m chasing the past, Bo. I never should have left him behind, so I’m fixing it. I’ll come back for the toys, I have to, and this time it’s not for a kid… I’m doing something for me. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

Bo’s arms weaved protectively over her waist. “No, it’s not. I don’t chase what’s gone. I never chased you. And I was happy.”

Static seemed to whimper between them, keeping them apart, unaligned no matter how badly they wanted to come together. Woody said softly, “I’m not happy like this.”

They parted, understanding that they were already far apart.

* * *

Woody and Hopper followed the garbage route, eventually finding a truck that took them to the landfill. He wasn’t thinking much farther than the current moment; every time he tried his heart threatened to pound right out of his stuffing. He could already feel its beating throughout his entire body, like he was trapped inside a lovesick song cranked up to full volume.

Days passed in the landfill, with Woody elbow-deep in everything people discarded. He couldn’t stop searching. He worked endlessly, until he passed out, then started over again. If he allowed himself to rest, he’d start thinking about what he was doing, and he couldn’t let that happen.

Then it was weeks, months. Who knew — Woody had never bothered keeping track.

One of those nights, Woody was peeling open a soggy cereal box when he froze per routine as he heard a person approaching. They were on a bike, skidding past. It was strange enough to draw Woody’s glance, and then he had to double-take. Squinting, Woody peered at the peculiarly green and purple backpack strapped to the cyclist. “Is that…?” It was. A Buzz Lightyear 1995 special edition backpack, for children in elementary and middle school. 

Woody grabbed onto the beacon like it was his own life.

Hopper took him after it, but the cyclist was a speed racer and the streets were nearly empty. Hopper’s wings were sputtering, scratching out floundering chirps against his legs. “C’mon, buddy… We can make it.” Woody hoped, though he had no idea where they were making it to. When they neared the line of trees Woody was sure they were at the end.

Instead, the cyclist ramped straight through the thick woodsy carpet and Woody gaped in disbelief. Was this kid crazy?

Hopper got caught up in the trees and the darkness, the moonlight shuttered out by branches stacked with leaves. Woody groaned as Hopper stalled on a branch slumping and tired.

They started walking along the trail made by bike tires. It must have been an hour before little yellow lights began poking through the branches ahead.

As the two came closer, Woody realized what it was, and stopped at the edge of the clearing in awe. String lights were woven through the branches, glowing warm and soft, like snowflakes that glimmered and never melted. Their light fluttered around a worn tent, a dormant fire pit, and a flock of picked flowers. The bike was lying on the ground, and the Buzz Lightyear backpack was sitting next to the flowers. Woody carefully made his way toward it, searching. The flowers caught his eye, and he realized they weren’t real. They were made of silk and dyes, mostly purples, blues, greens, and dreamy under the glow.

One of the purple petals had an odd shape, turned pale, and like a nose —

Woody’s heart leapt into his throat, and the whole world shrunk away from him.

_Buzz._

The lights seemed to cascade down as Woody approached him, and his feet were like lead anchors, his legs jelly; he wanted to run to him, but all he could do was take one tearful step at a time, his mouth ruined by smiling.

“Buzz?” Woody whispered, and gently brushed the petals aside from Buzz’s face.

His heart stopped.

He couldn't recognize the action figure buried in the flowers, but he knew.

The toy’s face was frozen in the likeness of a happy and daring Buzz Lightyear, but one of his eyes was reduced to an empty hollow, half of his chin misshapen, melted, and black char licking up his plastic skin. His brilliant green chest plate was chunky and marred, and as Woody hastily pushed away more flowers, he found that Buzz’s middle was equally ruined, the shape of his body unrecognizable, his shoes melted into nothing that could stand, and one arm was nowhere to be found in the ragged hole of his shoulder.

“Oh, _Buzz_ ,” Woody’s voice cracked, and he cupped Buzz’s face as his vision grew blurry and his own tears rolled down Buzz’s cheeks. A strangled noise that wanted to be happy squeaked out of Woody’s trembling mouth as he noticed the pink tint smudged on Buzz’s lips.

Beside him, Hopper purred sadly, his antennae resting on Woody’s back as Woody curled up and, his search at an end, held his friend in an embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Graphic depictions of physical trauma (non-human)
> 
> I plan on updating in two days at most :) I hope you enjoy, thank you dear readers.


	5. Trash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woody gets his blast from the past.

Woody felt dead to the world when Hopper latched four of his legs around him and pulled him off of Buzz, hopping them into the brush. He hadn’t heard the footsteps, or the voice. 

They were talking on a cellphone as they came into the camp. “I guess I can’t wait to see you and stuff. Shut up Ann, I said I’m gonna make dinner. Yeah… okay fine, I mean order pizza. Ha. But your name will be spelled out in little mushroom hearts.” The person faltered as he looked down at Buzz, whose flowers were scattered. “H-hey, aren’t you up way past your bedtime, Einstein’s? Go to bed. You too, bye.” The phone clattered into the dirt beside them.

There was something about that voice that drew Woody’s attention from Buzz, setting off distant alarms. 

It was no kid that had been wearing that backpack. This was an adult, shadowy tattoos up one arm disappearing under the rolled-up sleeve of a faux leather jacket and a shirt with a baleful skull in the center. Gems glinted like predatory eyes in his right ear, kaleidoscopic eyeshadow, a scruffy goatee. 

This was Sid Phillips. How many nightmares was Woody going to relive?

Sid shook his head, mumbled something about the wind, and a laugh that sounded nervous floated off. He meticulously replaced the flowers around Buzz. Suddenly those dreamy colors were morbid, vile, and the string lights emanated a nauseating beacon over a mortuary. It was a mockery of a funeral scene, with Buzz as the punchline, and for what? Sick amusement? Revenge for what he did to a Buzz Lightyear and Woody doll in the past? Sid sat back, then dug a spray can out of the backpack. Woody squinted, and made out the label; CLEAR ACRYLIC SEALER. 

Sid drummed fingers on the side of the can, shook it and bobbed to the musical sound, while Woody balled his hands into trembling fists and swallowed a noise of terror. Woody looked desperately at Hopper, at the surrounding trees, _anywhere,_ searching for a rescue.

But Sid suddenly sprawled onto his behind, the can clunking in the dirt. The pounding in Woody’s ears receded.

Sid pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and another gritty laugh wrung itself out of his mouth. “Feel the fear and do it anyway. Feel the fear and do it anyway,” he chanted.

Woody had to slap himself back to focusing on how to get Buzz away from Sid and that sealer, but Sid was crawling under his skin.

Sid kept talking to himself. “You hallucinate, sometimes. That’s okay. They’re hallucinations. Toys don’t want to kill you.”

That hit a railroad switch, and something occurred to Woody. It was the opposite of what he would expect to feel for the kid who had used toys as torture subjects. But those words were indicative of something dark and haunting, a childhood stolen. Sid thought toys wanted to kill him? _All these years._

The revelation coiled into his stomach along with his feelings for Buzz and begged him to vomit. Did Woody’s heroic deeds make Sid even worse? Subject Buzz to a more terrible fate than a doomed blast-off?

Sid was on his feet and sweeping Buzz and his flower bed into his backpack, one hand hastily dialing a number in his phone. Impulsive, Woody jumped onto the backpack as Sid slung it over his shoulders. Sid jammed the phone between his shoulder and chin; “Hannah! Uh, sorry to wake you, just wondering if you could talk to me while I ride home…” As Sid raked through the woods on his bike, Woody jostled the zipper open and tumbled in, Hopper following. 

Inside, Woody’s mind raced, then tripped into a weary mess. Slowly, he looked beside him, to the lump he felt through a sheet of petals. Gently, he moved them aside, until he got to Buzz.

“Wake up, buddy,” Woody whispered, the words flat, fully aware of their futility. They spent a while of bumping over curbs and uneven yards, meanwhile Woody was staring, yearning, toppling over into Buzz’s one frozen eye. Woody sighed. He pulled his hat over his eyes with one firm tug. “Don’t worry. I made a promise. I’m going back home, and you’re coming with me.”

Buzz twitched, and his face suddenly softened to a panicked scowl. “I can’t go back.”

Lights seemed to go off in all directions inside Woody, surreal and loud and gasping. “ _Buzz_!” Woody managed, tears gushing over dams. His arms and legs shoved through flowers to clamp around Buzz. "You're alive!"

“Woody,” Buzz croaked, looking away, head down, and the despair in Buzz’s voice struggled with the stars that bloomed in Woody’s vision upon hearing his name spoken by it. “Please. You’ve got to go.”

His words became scissors, slicing around Woody’s stomach, his heart scattering. “And leave you? Are you crazy?”

“I thought you had understood, by now. I thought everyone had moved on, you had moved on. I wanted you to move on.”

Woody’s mouth hung open, his eyebrows taut. Bo’s words were banging around in his head. _What do you expect to find? If you keep chasing the past, you’ll never be happy._

“Buzz, did you really think I would forget about you?”

Buzz squeezed his eyes shut. The more desperately Woody sought him, the harder it became. The more the numbing months of isolation crumbled away. Eventually, he said, “No. I know you’d never forget about me. I knew you’d come.” He looked up, and Woody caught his gaze, cradled it, hoping. Buzz said, almost a plea, “But I hoped you wouldn’t find me.”

There was a squeak of metal outside, the crunch of shoes on earth, and Woody stumbled over words. “You don’t want me here, is that it?”

Lethargic, as if it went against his nature, Buzz’s features drifted into a glare. 

“Answer me, Buzz!” Woody all but wheezed, his arms shaking as he clutched Buzz’s shoulders.

They crumpled into each other as the backpack was dropped. Hastily, Woody pried himself up and heaved Buzz along, worrying over him, pushing a feather-light flower off of Buzz’s head, gingerly clutching his face, then his fingers stopping short of the burned and melted plastic, hovering and petrified and embarrassed over the unrecognizable parts.

Buzz grabbed Woody’s hand. “Stop it, Woody. That look in your face. It’s the same way they all looked at me,” Buzz warned. “You look at me like I look like… this.” He didn’t have to gesture to his burned and missing pieces.

Woody stared back at Buzz, trembling, while Buzz's face drifted away from him. Woody was at a loss for words. He couldn't accept that this was what was happening - after all that, after everything, after finding Buzz alive, they still weren't going to return home together? In each others' arms, finally? No, there was no way that could happen. Buzz was alive. But Woody couldn't help the horrific, sick feeling that dripped into his stomach like acid, so similar to the shocking horror he felt when he heard Sid trying to convince himself that a Woody doll had never wanted him dead.

When Buzz finally spoke, Woody was suddenly able to breathe, hadn't even noticed that he'd stopped. Buzz's voice was laborious and monotone, laid out like papers across a desk.

“When it happened, and I was put in the trash, the toys came for me, too. I didn’t know yet how bad the damage was. I only realized when I saw Jessie’s face. When days passed, hiding in the closet, and no one could talk to me the way they used to, like I wasn’t the Buzz they knew. No one looked at me the same. It took a while, but it sunk in. I couldn’t be fixed. There was no future for a toy like me. I may as well have been dead.” Buzz’s grip gradually weakened. Woody didn’t let Buzz’s hand fall, winding his fingers around it.

“That’s not true,” Woody protested, voice cracking, and Buzz’s eye filled with sympathy, of all things.

“I couldn’t continue doing to them what I’m doing to you right now,” Buzz said gently. “They were watching me die, and I was already dead. Every day, when the house was empty, I was there, so they could feel bad for being played with while I could only watch from the closet. Then it was only a matter of time before a moving day, or spring cleaning. It was best for us to choose our goodbye.”

Every word Buzz said pulled the scissors in Woody’s stomach, sliced him a little thinner. It felt like static metal was filling his ears.

“You’re -- you’re not dead,” Woody said, reaching for air.

“Bonnie didn’t want me anymore. What kid would? Only someone like Sid. What’s the point if I can’t be played with? If I can’t make kids happy? If I’m no longer a toy?”

Woody was so far under, he couldn’t think straight. He stared imploringly at Buzz, and beneath all of his grief, anger was bubbling. Impatience, that he couldn’t convince Buzz to just shut up and be here _._

“ _You_ ,” Woody found the words, finally. " _Y_ _ou’re_ the point.”

Buzz’s eye lifted, as though he was seeing Woody for the first time.

“That’s the reason I wrote you letters. That’s the reason I came back. For _you_ , not for a kid. Not for a toy. For Buzz.”

The thought hung between them, delicate, rosy. Buzz gave Woody the same look he did in Sid’s room with a rocket-ship strapped to his back only with years of companionship straining his brow, a handful of letters kneading his mouth, a lifetime of devotion filling his one, stormy eye. Eventually, doubt twisted into his face, and Buzz looked away as though in shame.

“Then,” Woody scowled, “If I can’t take you back with me, I guess I’m going to be staying here with you and Sid.”

Buzz stared at him in protest, wide-eyed. Woody wove his fingers tightly through Buzz’s. There was something else in Buzz’s gaze, something that slowly rose to the brim; disbelief, but a color, a warm pink in his cheeks, rosy in the edges of his eyes.

The crank of a zipper split between them, both of them instinctively releasing to toy mode. The backpack opened, but only a fraction, and something huffed and wriggled in.

“Baggin bag bagel, bagel bag. Bagel bites,” he sang.

Woody blinked as the critter flopped onto Hopper, startling the insect. “Forky!”

“Huh? Woody? In my trash? It’s more likely than you think?” Forky bobbled. His eye googled between Woody and Buzz; one had fallen off, with no more Bonnie's parents to replace it. “Oooooh. You’re making out.”

“What?” Woody scoffed. “No.”

“Kissing?”

“Uh-- no!”

“Necking.”

“N… how do you know that word-- no! Forky!”

“Yes!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh. I’m the garbage man’s trash. Isn’t it great?”

“Garbage man..?”

Buzz answered. “Sid. He works as a garbage truck operator.”

“Yeah, Sid,” Forky said dreamily.

Woody shook his head, frustrated. “Okay, fine. That’s fine. I’m glad you two have found a happy life with Sid the garbage collector.”

“Yep. Being trash is great. I saw a broken walkman Sony today! And a little toaster. Oh, I even saw another Buzz Lightyear! That's almost more Buzzes I've seen than forks.”

By the end of it, Woody stopped searching for a pause button. “Wait. A Buzz Lightyear?” 

“I've found fifty-three forks. I think. Oh, I don’t want to get your hopes up. This one wasn’t nearly as good as Buzz. Two arms.” Forky shrugged. "What about smooching?"

“Two arms,” Woody echoed. He met Buzz’s weary gaze. “Buzz. I think I know how to fix you.”

Buzz gazed back with his wide, hopeless eye, then looked softly at their hands, bound together. He held on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as promised... I wanted to try to get this updated every 2 days, but this next one might take a bit longer due to time constraints. I hope you're enjoying the emotional ride. Thank you so much for reading <3


	6. Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woody sets out to fix Buzz.
> 
> See end notes for Content Warning.

Woody learned that two-armed Buzz Lightyear was kept in Sid’s closet.

“We find this other Buzz, and then we get out of here.”

Forky stared at Woody. “Why?”

“It’s not safe. This is _Sid,_ sadistic Dr. Frankenstein of toys.” 

Forky’s doughy mouth hung in the shape of a confused triangle, and Woody wasn’t sure if his one googly eye was even seeing him. 

“Okay,” Woody said, realizing the conversation was over. He started toward the small opening Forky had left, past where Hopper was now sleeping like a kitten. 

A flicker of red haunted the cracked-open zipper. A misty blue crept in behind it. He realized he was trapped in Sid’s room all over again. A cramp began lacing through Woody’s hand from gripping Buzz’s so hard.

But Woody had looked terror and anxiety in the face many times before. “Come on.” He pulled Buzz through the pile of silk petals, petting Hopper awake as he moved toward the zipper.

Woody peeked out of the bag. The red light was flickering from a computer tower, its face open to a dazzling display of colors. A breath of yellow faded into the corners of the room, where lights were strung up wall-to-wall, a ghostly imitation of what they found in the forest. Blue lurked among it all, humming from the computer screen, in front of which a figure was hunched.

Woody ducked back in. “Sid’s still awake,” He hissed.

“Well duh, its prime gaming time,” Forky scoffed. 

“How long is he going to be up?”

Forky hummed contemplatively. “I think… most nights… usually… he is up un… til… about the time… when he… goes to sleep.” He nodded.

Woody buried his face in his hand. He stuck his head back out of the bag. Sid was wearing clunky headphones, and though his fingers moved like snakes over the keyboard, the keys made no noise. The backpack they were in was sitting against the wall of a basement, stairs ascending to their right. Between them and the stairs was a closet. Massive speakers sat around unplugged, providing suitable cover. The second look around the room wasn’t so intimidating as the first; it was just blinking lights in a dark room, like a living room on Christmas Eve. Even in the darkest of corners, there were no Frankenstein toys to be seen. 

Woody looked down at Buzz. “Ready?”

Buzz’s face was clouded with uncertainty. There were questions he was too weary to ask, questions he wouldn’t voice because, in the end, they didn’t matter. But he and Woody had always rescued each other, so Buzz would let Woody try. If Buzz made him leave now, Woody would never get over his guilt, and Buzz couldn’t let him suffer that. While the rest of the toys were sad to see him go, the bond he had with Woody was inexplicably different. It was as spontaneous as Woody’s hand clasping with his, and just as ordinary. It was pushing buttons and pulling strings with secretive smirks, comments shared in whispers to ears tilted close; it was the unspoken agreement that they’d be adjoining links in every toy-chain tactic. Woody gave Buzz a feeling of belonging that no one else did, even now, as Woody refused to acknowledge the reality of Buzz’s state. With a fraction more effort than before, Buzz helped Woody carry him out of the backpack.

“Okay, Shoulders, I’d think with all that space technology you’d have come up with an even bulkier suit.” A grin shimmered through Woody’s mire as he hefted Buzz bridal-style into his arms. 

It was that smile that snuck under Buzz’s armor like a tropical breeze. He would have wished he had his wits to retort in kind, but Woody held him reassuringly against his chest and it was enough to just smile back.

Forky flopped around vaguely in the direction of the closet. “Hey,” Forky whined. “How come Buzz gets to be carried?” He plopped onto his back in protest.

Woody stepped carefully by him, easy on his neon-stitched leg. “Because Buzz can’t walk, if you haven’t noticed. And be quiet.” He glanced at Buzz, who was looking as far from Woody as he could, as if he could just as simply hide his brokenness. Woody was compelled to hold him tighter.

A shadow rippled through the blue glow, stopping Woody in his tracks as a tingle wormed up his neck. Hopper bumped into his legs, tilting his head as Woody looked toward the computer.

It was just Sid, taking a drink of Mountain Dew.

Woody let out his breath, continuing toward the closet. Behind him, Forky was holding onto one of Hopper’s legs and being dragged as the grasshopper inched along.

Suddenly a bulbous shadow pounced onto Forky.

Forky screamed and flailed, and Woody wheeled around to see a cat pinning him under a paw. “Forky!” Woody gasped, and just glimpsed a blur of Hopper as the insect bolted away. His arms full of Buzz, Woody hesitated, but Buzz caught his eye.

“I’ll be fine. Go get him, Sheriff,” Buzz urged. 

Woody realized Buzz could make him do anything calling him that. Nodding, Woody set him down against the wall and lurched for Forky.

“Shoo!” Woody hissed, waving his arms wildly at the cat and kicking its paw. The cat stepped back, vexed, and Forky rolled into Woody. 

“Up! Up!” Forky insisted, and Woody rolled his eyes as he scooped him up and booked it back to Buzz. He gathered Buzz up next, Forky clambering over Woody’s shoulder and commenting unhelpfully; “Bye-bye, Scoot.”

“What?” Woody ventured, but was interrupted as the cat clawed them down. Buzz bounced out of his arms, Forky tumbling after and Woody reaching for them as nails sunk into his back.

Then a blur fluttered straight into the cat’s face and it reeled back with a yowl. Woody took his chance to scramble to Buzz, looking over his shoulder only after he had Buzz secure. 

Hopper was hovering just above claws and teeth, providing ample distraction. Woody’s heart twisted for the little guy, but he had to make decisions quickly, getting Buzz and Forky to safety first. He stepped back towards the closet, and then Sid spun around in his chair.

Sid jumped in his seat at the sight of his cat, cursing in surprise and shielding his head with one arm while he grabbed the plastic soda bottle with the other. He chucked it at Hopper, knocking him out of the air and sending the cat in a blitz right for Woody, Buzz and Forky.

Woody yelped and raced for the closet, slipping in through the cracked door and tumbling in a heap with Buzz. The cat darted past and up the stairs, but they weren’t home free yet; Sid’s chair creaked as he stood up, and Woody could only assume he might look in the closet for something he thought he saw run in. It was dark, but Woody felt the sleek cardboard of packaging, pried it open and tossed his passengers in before jumping after them. It was a squeeze with some kind of papery filling surrounding them, Woody pressed horizontal into Buzz. The glow from his green chest plate was still there, but barely, like it was almost all used up. Woody could feel Buzz’s breath on his face, calm and level in contrast to his own panting. Woody stuck a hand out until he felt the splintery, reassuring texture of Forky’s foot. Then Buzz’s hand found Woody’s arm. The darkness settled as the reality of Buzz’s weight settled into Woody, and yet it all seemed lighter, lifted. Buzz gingerly followed Woody’s arm down to his hand. Woody let his head dip forward until it met Buzz’s, and their breathing slowed in sync.

The closet door opened and the light switched on. Woody and Buzz stared into each other’s eyes, waiting for when the moment would be over, and at the same time waiting for this moment to never end. The last time Woody could remember their faces being this close was when Buzz’s plastic dome was separating them -- he never noticed just how pink Buzz’s cheeks were. This time, instead, it was just a breath, the faded scent of cologne, and their eyes floating over each other, eager blue and bright brown.

The light went off and the door closed. Buzz squeezed Woody’s hand.

“Your hand reaches mine but we’re lightyears apart,” Forky said.

Woody jerked up. “What?”

“Neighbors, friends, always a fence.” Forky explained.

“He’s reading off one of these papers,” Buzz realized.

Woody grasped one of the crinkled papers surrounding them, holding it up for Buzz to see with his scant green glow, squinting through the dark. It was torn out of a notebook and scribbled with poetry. “Huh. At least one of Sid’s hobbies isn’t grounded in torture.” Woody sat up and pushed the lid open, and the light crawling through the seams of the door was enough to illuminate a strange shape in the middle of the closet. It was made of differently colored pieces of paper, decoupaged into the vague impression of a head. All around it were stacks of boxes, towering and disappearing into a black shadow above.

“Okay, this is more along the lines of what I was expecting in Sid’s room,” Woody muttered as he helped Buzz and Forky out of the box. He missed the horse-sized grasshopper, and a knot weighed in his stomach. 

“We’ll find your friend,” Buzz said, his voice wavering, reading Woody’s eyes, knowing, of course. “Where did you find a grasshopper like that, anyway?”

“You wouldn’t believe. I thought it was going to eat me.”

Buzz raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. “If I had known it was that easy to win you over, I would have tried that myself before you threw me out a window.”

Both their eyes went big as Buzz’s mouth skewed into a guilty slant and Woody laughed awkwardly. It should have been a normal joke, but it curled into Woody’s ears like a cartoony and beckoning spray of perfume.

“Sorry. Been a while since I attempted comedy,” Buzz confessed. “Is that what happened to you? The... er, eating.” Buzz touched a tear in Woody’s shoulder. “And you’re limping.” His voice crumbled with guilt.

“Oh, you know, life on the road,” Woody cobbled hastily.

“Wordy and Buzzy,” Forky sighed.

Woody cleared his throat. Buzz managed a contrite smile.

“Huh? Who said that?” Forky whimpered, wondering why the show had stopped.

“Didn’t you say the other Buzz Lightyear was in here?” Woody asked, walking forward and looking around the closet. Boxes were shoved along the walls, photos plastered behind them. As he got closer to the paper head, he noticed the papers had been colored with dye, like watercolor paint. It was nothing skin colored, but there was hair shaped out of thinly-sliced strands of paper, bangs swept over one side of the forehead. Woody shuddered, feeling sorry for whatever poor soul it was fashioned after.

“Buzz is right there,” Forky said, indicating Woody’s Buzz in his arms.

“No, Forky. The other Buzz. The one you said had two arms.”

“Why didn’t you just say that,” Forky scolded. “Garbage man brought him home in a barbage gab. Garbage bag. This is where he keeps his wholesome trash.”

“I don’t see a bag.”

“Hey look! A Buzz Lightyear!” Forky called, looking behind a stack of boxes.

Woody waddled over with Buzz, and then shrunk back at what he saw. Buzz frowned and sighed.

Though only shreds of light made it through to the dark shapes, they could see the Buzz Lightyear was dismantled, his pieces stuck under a plastic tupperware with several game systems and a desk lamp stacked on top as though to keep him from escaping. The figure was splayed out methodically, each piece resting in a bed of what looked like salt. 

Once again Woody felt a twist of guilt in his stomach. _But Sid was like this before Woody ever got to him,_ he thought, though it didn’t make his stomach feel any better.

Woody set Buzz down, then stepped over a line of stones that formed a circle around it. 

“Woody, what are you doing?” Buzz asked.

Woody answered over his shoulder. “I’m getting those pieces so I can fix you.”

“Woody…” Buzz sighed. “You know you can’t do that.”

“What are you talking about? I’m going to fix you, so you don’t have to stay here, or spend your life in the dump.” 

Buzz winced, then shook his head. “Come back here.” His voice was so low and somber that Woody was afraid to make any noise at all, that he wouldn’t be able to hear it.

“No! Buzz? This is the whole reason we came here! What are you… What are you saying?” 

“I know… I shouldn’t have let you get this far.” Buzz gazed at Woody firmly, knowingly. “I didn’t think you’d really find an arm, much less an entire figure. That toy may be taken apart, but those pieces still belong to them. You know you won’t be able to take them.” 

“Ha! Don’t you worry about that, Buzz,” Woody scowled, turning up his nose. “See if I can’t!”

“No, Woody! Stop!”

“Oh no, I’m wearing AirPods,” Woody scoffed as he climbed up the tupperware.

“Woody!” Buzz snapped. “I don’t _want_ to be fixed!”

Those words shattered into Woody’s mind. He turned, his fingers frozen under the edges of a game system. “Okay, you’ve been isolated, going crazy for a long time. You’ve been listening to Forky too much,” Woody insisted.

“Hey,” Forky grumbled. “Not nice. _I_ listen to _you…_ What’s wrong with listening to Forky...”

Buzz was glaring at Woody, his chest rising with every breath. “Drop it, Woody. Did you really think you were just going to _take_ another toy’s _limbs?_ What is _wrong_ with you?”

Woody looked from his Buzz to the pieces below him, incredulous. “Wrong with _me?”_

Buzz stared back at Woody with an intensity that rivaled the sun through a magnifying glass. “I said,” Buzz growled, “I don’t want…” His voice cracked.

Woody’s breath hitched at the sound of it, and he fell off of the Tupperware in alarm. He scrambled up as Buzz turned his face away with tears flowing from his one eye. Finally, Buzz said, “I don’t know.”

Woody straightened, standing firmly. “Well I _do_ know, Buzz. Just trust me on this. I’ll get you back the way you were.” 

“ _No,_ Woody. You’re. Not. Listening. I don’t want to go back.”

“But Buzz,” Woody spoke slowly. It was as if they weren’t even speaking the same language. “You’re talking nonsense here,” he laughed nervously. “Don’t you see? I--I can fix this, please Buzz, we… We can fix you, and then figure out what’s next _together--”_

Woody’s mouth and eyes hung open, trembling out on shaking limbs as he realized what he had said, what he was implying, all with a simple inflection of a single word; _together._

He searched Buzz’s face for a response. His eye was wide, shimmered for just a second under aching eyebrows; then it dimmed, dried up, exhausting its light, his frown setting. “If you can’t let go of trying to fix me, then I don’t want anything to do with you,” he said, robotic, his eyes faded and unfocused. 

Woody turned to stone, his emotions trapped within a petrified vault. His hands felt alien and empty, as if they weren’t even there, and that they could only exist if he had Buzz’s hands in them. “I, I _need_ you...” he trailed off, completely splaying himself before Buzz, cutting it all open now, while he had the chance, eyes searching the empty air for what he was trying to say but no words seemed to fit right. 

Buzz’s eyes settled on Woody, and it was as if he were taking back all of the kindness he had ever given; Woody’s arm felt cold where Buzz had touched it before. “Yeah. You need me fixed. And I _won’t_ be fixed. I can’t be. Anyone can see that.” His voice was quickly raising like an alarm.

“What, no, Buzz, I--”

Buzz spoke over him. “You always have to fix everything, you always have to make everything perfect. You said so yourself, that I have to be fixed to belong anywhere but the dump, right?”

“Where is this coming from?” Woody laughed, mortified.

Buzz rolled his eyes; he wasn’t even looking at Woody anymore, as if he was done with him, for good. There was a slight, horrible quiver in Buzz’s face, and Woody’s heart sobbed in his throat, voice dried up. “Just forget it, Woody. I can’t really walk, so listen to what I’m saying, and _go.”_ Buzz turned his head from Woody, and there was nothing but disdain in his face.

Woody swallowed against the knot in his throat. The next moments were a blur. He nudged Forky to come with him, but Buzz said Forky could stay; that he was the only toy that hadn’t ever seen him as worth less than before. 

When Sid was sleeping, Woody crawled out of the closet like a rat from a sewer. He thought he’d busy himself looking for Hopper, so he might not be trapped alone with his own thoughts, until he saw the cat pacing across the desk, roaming around the room. No grasshopper wings between its teeth, at least. With nothing to be done but wait, he found a broken speaker to hide in, and, later, while his heart was broken all over again, watched Buzz and Forky return to the backpack.

* * *

****

Woody woke up to the sound of Sid gasping and sobbing. It was the sound of the feeling in Woody’s chest, and unsettling. He just wished Sid would leave and take the cat with him already.

Instead, Sid curled up with a phone. “Hannah,” was all he could manage amidst crying. Woody listened to him tremble as Hannah talked to him; after a moment the phone was dropped on the bed and Sid hugged his knees to his chest. His eyes were puffy and red, his cheeks smeared with makeup. 

Woody groaned, frustrated by the ache in his stomach, and slid down the wall of the empty speaker. He pulled his hat off of his head and regarded it like it might have advice. “Why should I feel bad for this evil kid. I got Buzz and Hopper to be worried about. Maybe Forky, though he seems to like it here… for some reason.” He suddenly missed Bo and her resourcefulness. She taught him that he had been wrong about lost toys. Woody looked thoughtfully at his hat, worn and dirty, and reached back to touch the empty pull-string eyelet on his back, his fingers grazing punctures left by the cat. He suddenly felt like an idiot for making Buzz feel like he was broken at all.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, footsteps padding down and light pouring in. Good, Woody thought, someone to drag Sid out of his room.

The voice was instantly, heart-wrenchingly familiar. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

Woody vaulted to the opening in the speaker where he could look into the room.

Andy.

It was Andy, consoling Sid, who was just as blown away as Woody.

Woody watched, heart pounding from his toes to his ears, as Andy curled up on the bed with Sid. Andy seemed to know exactly what to say, spoke with a voice of liquid gold, and Sid seemed to melt into a relaxed puddle the moment Andy put an arm around him.

Andy transformed Sid before his eyes from a nightmarish, terrifying monster to a person, and all it took was love and acceptance, reassurance against his fears, fears that Woody had placed there when he was a child.

“A lot of kids go through those kinds of phases, you know?” Andy said softly in Sid’s ear, combing fingers through his hair. “Maybe it’s not a good thing to torture toys, but you know better now, and you’re not the only person who has done that kind of stuff. You wouldn’t hurt a fly now, huh? Not my Sidney.” Andy nuzzled Sid and got a giggle out of him. “Toys aren’t trying to kill you, okay?”

Woody slowly sat back against the wall, utterly mystified, his world turned upside down, while Sid and Andy talked about the pizza dinner they had planned for later and Sid’s progress with therapy.

“Oh, wait here a sec,” Sid said, stumbling off the bed. He went into the closet, pulling the door closed behind him.

Andy laughed. “What are you doing in there?”

“Just hold on, Ann!”

After an eternal minute of clicking and clattering noises, Sid emerged, holding something behind his back.

“Andy, you’ve inspired me so much, I wanted to… do something… that I know means a lot to you. Even if I’m scared about it.” Sid was even kind of adorable when he was nervous around Andy. 

Andy leaned forward warily. “Sid..? Didn’t we agree we’d wait to try that? It doesn’t mean a lot to me, c’mon...”

Sid brandished the Buzz Lightyear action figure, fully intact with sparkling grin. “Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!” Sid beamed.

Speechless, Andy reached out and took the toy into his hands. He turned it over, touched the bottoms of its boots, the perfect LIGHTYEAR name-tag, looked at his face. The longer Andy stared at the Buzz, the more his face began to scrunch up, the more his eyes became clouded and wet. 

“Ann? What, you don’t like it?”

Andy scrubbed his eyes. “It’s not that, I…” He looked at the Buzz again, and then carefully set it onto the blanket. “I can’t explain it… it’s just not the same. I can’t just… replace the toys I had with new ones. Sid, I’m sorry.” He had noticed the cross expression bubbling in Sid’s face and took his hand. “This is such a thoughtful gift, Sid, and it means a lot to me that you did this. I love it, I do. I just… have to tell you, how I feel. I don’t think I can ever replace my old toys. I just have to be happy with my memories, is all.” He topped it off with a smile, tugging Sid onto the bed next to him. He couldn’t tell him, yet, that he didn’t think he could keep the new Buzz. It only reminded him that much more of the toys he was missing.

Eventually, Sid leaned into Andy’s side, a tense pout on his face, his eyes guarded. They always were. Andy rubbed his shoulder.

“I know that wasn’t the response you wanted. You don’t have to be happy with it. It’s okay if you’re sad, you know?” 

Meanwhile, Woody had ascended to the clouds painted in Andy’s old room, the warmth of a hand wrapped around him and floating him to the top of the world.

He hoped Buzz was hearing this too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: More creepy depiction of toy mutilation, though not very graphic this time. Also some sexual innuendo.
> 
> This was by far the most challenging chapter to write! Thanks for waiting, and I very much hope you enjoy this installment to the story. I have to profusely thank my sister, [slightly-mental on tumblr](https://slightly-mental.tumblr.com/) (NSFW warning), for her help and support throughout this fic and especially on this chapter. 
> 
> I changed the rating from M to teen & up because, while I explore emotionally heavy themes, it's not really graphic... I don't know, I went with M because I want to be careful not to mind-torture anyone looking for something light, but I suppose that's noted in the tags, huh? Silly me.
> 
> I hope to have the next one up in a week at most. Everyone leaving comments-- Wow, just wow. you give me life. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to leave your thoughts <3


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